Former Clemson football star questions 2025 team’s toughness. Dabo responds
Clemson football had a lot of critics on Saturday.
One of them was a prominent former player.
After Clemson lost 24-21 at Georgia Tech and fell to 1-2 and 0-1 in the ACC, former Clemson defensive end Shaq Lawson publicly questioned the team’s toughness in posts made on X (formerly Twitter).
“We don’t got no dawgs at Clemson,” wrote Lawson, a member of Clemson’s 2015 team that reached the national championship. “That NIL change everything.”
Lawson added in follow-up posts that Clemson’s culture was “different” when he played there from 2013-15 and he didn’t see a reason for former players to donate to the school’s name, image and likeness (NIL) fund to help the football program.
“Why would we?” Lawson wrote.
Although it’s not uncommon for Clemson to face criticism from fans and media members, it’s not often a former player (and one who’s still actively involved with the program and the university) criticizes coach Dabo Swinney’s team so directly.
Lawson, 31, was a consensus All-American for Clemson as a junior in 2015 when the Tigers make their first ever College Football Playoff and lost to Alabama in the national title game.
Lawson, a nine-year NFL veteran, was also an honorary captain for Clemson’s home opener vs. LSU and has a younger brother on the 2025 team (Jahiem Lawson, a redshirt junior defensive end).
Swinney addressed Lawson’s comments on his weekly Sunday teleconference.
Dabo responds to Shaq Lawson’s program critiques
Swinney said he had a “ton of respect” for Lawson and he was entitled to his opinion about the state of program, as anyone is. He also readily admitted Clemson’s entire roster and coaching staff has to “be better.”
But Swinney also emphasized that amid those criticisms, “perception is not reality” and he’s still confident the 2025 Tigers can have a strong season.
“I understand that frustration,” Swinney said. “People care about this program. I care about this program, but I also have a lot of perspective. ... And hey, we’re 1-2, but not every 1-2 is the same. That’s for dang sure.”
Clemson dropped from No. 12 to unranked in Sunday’s AP Top 25 poll after losing at Georgia Tech on a walk-off field goal in its ACC and road opener. Clemson had been the preseason No. 4 team in the country heading into 2025 before losing its season opener to a talented LSU team and sneaking by Troy, a Sun Belt team.
Clemson held a halftime lead against LSU and a fourth quarter lead against Georgia Tech before coming up short in both games by a combined 10 points. Swinney said Clemson is “a few plays away from being undefeated.”
After returning 16 of 22 starters including potential NFL first-round draft picks like QB Cade Klubnik, DT Peter Woods and DE T.J. Parker, Clemson now only has a 5.3% chance to make the College Football Playoff after three weeks, per ESPN.
“It’s just the bottom line: We’ve gotta be better,” Swinney said. “We’ve gotta be tough enough to make one more play. Again, as poorly as we played offensively against LSU, it still comes down to the last play. And then certainly, this past game was one play. We’ve gotta be better everywhere — not just the players.”
Clemson has only started 1-2 on other time under Swinney (2014). The Tigers have won 10-plus games 13 of the last 14 seasons and no fewer than nine games in a season since 2010 (Swinney’s second full season as coach).
“We’ve been a good program for a long time, but that doesn’t mean we haven’t had adversity,” Swinney said, adding that Clemson still has nine more regular-season games and needs to “keep playing and battling through.”
“The criticism, that’s just going to come with the territory. You’ve gotta stay away from all that stuff and focus on doing the work, and we’ve gotta get better at that.”
This story was originally published September 14, 2025 at 6:59 PM.
